Apple apologizes for slowing down old iPhones, offers $29 battery replacements

iphone 6s
An iPhone 6s Kārlis Dambrāns/Flickr

Apple Inc on Friday issued an apology to its customers following company's move to slowdown iPhones to protect battery stability.

"We've been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize," Apple said in a statement.

"We have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades."

Apple, one of the the most valuable brands in the world, said a software feature released last year is slowing down iphones to offset problems with its aging lithium ion battery.

Apple said it was trying to "smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down" when conditions were cold or as batteries aged.

As batteries get older, they don't hold their charges as well as newer batteries, and can have develop problem.

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Apple added that it now believes that "another contributor to these user experiences is the continued chemical aging of the batteries in older iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s devices, many of which are still running on their original batteries".

To help customers learn more about iPhone's rechargeable battery and the factors affecting its performance, Apple has posted a new support article, iPhone Battery and Performance.

To address customers' concerns and to recognize their loyalty and regain the trust, Apple said it would reduce the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement to $29 from $79 earlier for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018.

This article was first published on December 29, 2017
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